UK austerity plans gets the thumbs-up from the IMF

It said weak economic growth and rising inflation had been "unexpected", but said they were "largely temporary".

The IMF's endorsement of Government cuts came as 47 leading economists demanded the Coalition's government change its economic policy, claiming the UK's finances were too unstable to withstand the spending cuts.

The IMF's report did warn that some policy adjustments may still be likely in order to prevent runaway inflation.

These included expanding the Bank of England's programme of asset purchases or having a temporary tax cut.

On The Guardian website it reports the IMF's downgrade of UK economic growth, to 1.5% – down from 2.5% forecast in April 2010.

Inflation is likely to remain above 4% for most of this year, it said, before gradually returning to near the Bank of England's 2% target. IMF predicted that the UK economy would grow by 1.5% in 2011, down from its forecast of 1.7% in April and 2% in November 2010.